If three isn’t Lee Chambers’ favourite number then it probably should be.

Why? Because he’s been a member of Minchinhampton Tennis Club for three decades, he’s been men’s club captain three times and he’s currently in his third year in his latest stint as the man at the helm.

And to continue the theme, the 49-year-old is also a father of three!

As it happens, his children haven’t followed him into tennis, while even Chambers, a big tennis enthusiast, was something of a latecomer to the sport.

“I used to play badminton,” he told The Local Answer. “I started when I was seven, eight, nine. I was a county junior player.”

So how did he get into tennis?

“A sporty friend of mine had double booked himself with cricket and tennis,” he explained. “He asked if I could take his place in the tennis.

“I said I’d never played tennis, but he persuaded me to give it a go. He said it was just like playing badminton except that the ball is allowed to bounce!”

Chambers, an ex-Marling School pupil, was about 15 at the time and that first match was a junior game for Stroud. And once he’d played one game of tennis, he wanted to play more.

“I switched over to tennis almost straight away,” continued Chambers.  “I played with my friends from school and then when I got into the adult teams I played with some of the teachers from my school!”

He played for Stroud for four years before moving, along with half-a-dozen others, to Minchinhampton.

“Minchinhampton played at a higher level, we wanted to play a better standard of tennis,” he explained.

And Chambers has certainly been playing a high standard for many years now.

He played in the Premier Division of the Gloucestershire League for Minchinhampton’s A team and said: “I’m quite strong at the net. Because of my badmintion I’ve got good hand/eye coordination and quick reflexes.”

Chambers has only recently stepped down to the B team, who play in Division Two.

“We’ve got a very strong nucleus in our A team,” added Chambers. “Jason Boon, who is the county’s over-35s captain, has joined us from Frampton, and our coach James Aburrow, who has just been recognised as Gloucestershire County Performance Coach of the Year, demonstrate our strength in depth.

“We’ve never won the Premier Division before but we’ve got a very good squad now.”

Minchinhampton have four teams in the men’s summer league and another three in the women’s league, and Chambers said with some pride: “Along with East Glos and David Lloyd Gloucester, we are the only club to have a men’s and women’s team in both premier divisions.”

The men and women join forces in the winter to play together in the Gloucestershire Winter League and the club’s mixed teams certainly flourished in the most recent campaign.

“We had five teams and three of them won promotion,” said Chambers. “I captained the B team who will now play in the Premier Division. We won all 12 of our games, I think I might give up the captaincy now, it’s all going too well!

“The A team finished second in the Premier Division but I think I’ll have to drop myself to the C team, I don’t want to play Premier Division!”

And while the competitive side of the club is obviously strong, Chambers, who lives in Hardwicke, is just as happy about the overall strength of the club.

“We’ve got a thriving junior section, about 25 per cent of our men’s and ladies’ teams have come through the juniors,” he said. “I’ve always been an advocate of bringing on the youth, it helps us older ones with our mobility!

“And if you don’t want to play league tennis, we’ve got a thriving social section which is really important, including a group of about 30 members who organise regular 4’s every day of the week.

“Two years ago we had the courts re-laid, they’re artificial clay which is really good for the joints.”

And Chambers, a field director at Weetabix, plans to be playing on them for a good while yet.

“I’ve got no plans to retire,” he said.

And what about the captaincy, he stood down as men’s club captain after three years on the previous two occasions.

“I’ll go through this season and then we’ll evaluate it at the end of the year,” he said. “While the work/life balance allows, I’m happy to do it.”

That’s certainly good news for Minchinhampton Tennis Club.